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Democrats Eye Maine Senator for Key Health Vote

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to hit the restart button on the health care debate, Senator Olympia J. Snowe does not relish the prospect of becoming a Group of One.

“I certainly hope not,” exclaimed Ms. Snowe, about the possibility that she could end up as the sole Republican willing to join Senate Democrats in moving ahead on a broad change in health care.

Ms. Snowe and two Republican colleagues, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, have been privately negotiating a health care plan with three Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee in what has become known as the Group of Six.

This has given Ms. Snowe a high degree of leverage as Democrats ask, What does Olympia Snowe want?

The senator, a centrist from Maine who is no stranger to breaking with her party on policy, said she was still working out the answer, though she said the August recess had led her to believe that Congress might have to scale back its health care expectations.

Ms. Snowe says she wants the public to understand that there is a serious problem, that the health care system is in crisis and that even people who are happy with their current coverage will not stay content for long, given rapidly rising costs and steadily shrinking benefits.

“They may say they are satisfied now,” the senator said in an interview, “but it is going to get worse, given the skyrocketing increases that are only going to persist. Something needs to be done to remove the deep anxiety that people find themselves in because of the lack of health insurance.”

As for the details, Ms. Snowe has been the rare Republican willing to show any interest in a public health insurance plan as an option, though she favors a trigger to institute such a government-operated program only if private health insurers do not make coverage more affordable.

She said Maine’s experience with insurance exchanges to create more flexibility for consumers had persuaded her that for less-populated states, the exchanges had to extend beyond state borders. She also thinks the idea of a reinsurance program to have the federal government absorb the risks of some catastrophic health care costs in an effort to lower private premiums is worth exploring.

All of this means that Ms. Snowe, a senior member of the Finance Committee with a longtime interest in health policy, is the chief Democratic target. And with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s death leaving Democrats a single vote shy of the 60 required to overcome Republican procedural objections at least temporarily, their need to entice at least one Republican to cross the aisle has become more critical.

Along with Senator Susan Collins, her fellow Maine Republican, Ms. Snowe has backed Democratic budget plans opposed by most of her party. She has balked at some tax cuts, pushed for more attention to rising federal deficits and generally shown a willingness to split from Republicans on issues where she sees more common ground with Democrats.

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“She has courage, real courage,” said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, one of the Finance Committee Democrats in the Group of Six who, as chairman of the Budget Committee, has also worked with Ms. Snowe on fiscal issues.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who has consulted with Ms. Snowe, said: “She is really in it for the policy. When you think of an ideal senator, regardless of party or philosophy, Olympia Snowe really fits that mold.”

Republicans and their allies are not so enthusiastic. To them, Ms. Snowe is a potential turncoat who could be used by Democrats to slap a bipartisan label on any health care plan even if she is the only Republican backing it.

The conservative Club for Growth has run television commercials in Maine warning that Ms. Snowe could provide a crucial assist to Democrats intent on giving the federal government more say in national health care.

“She is in many cases what we would call a RINO,” said Chris Chocola, a former congressman who now heads the Club for Growth, applying a dismissive acronym for Republican In Name Only.

But Ms. Snowe and Ms. Collins have thrived in Maine politics by following their own political instincts, even as Congressional Republicans have all but disappeared elsewhere in New England. She still holds out hope for a final plan that could draw support from members of both parties.

She said that what had annoyed her during this summer of health care fights was that the issue had become the subject of political warfare rather than problem-solving.

“It shouldn’t be about winning and losing,” she said. “If it comes down to all or nothing in this polarizing standoff, that does nothing to serve the interests of this country at a time of great consequence. That is what saddens me.”

Ms. Snowe said she hoped the Group of Six could hold together and reach some compromise that allowed Congress to move ahead, even if it was not the sweeping plan some envision.